190 wood-engraved plates, 120 full-page: charging the windmill, traversing Spanish plains, valleys, mountains, ghostly visions of dragons, knights, flaming lake. Marvelous detail, minutiae, accurate costumes, architecture, enchantment, pathos, humor. Captions.

"The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labeled ""the first modern novel and is sometimes considered the best literary work ever written.The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble from La Mancha named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story."

How did the tall, lanky Don Quixote and the short, stout Sancho Panza become staple figures of Western iconography, so well known that their silhouettes are easily recognizable in Picasso's famous work? How did the novel Don Quixote, a parody of the romances of knight errantry, become a paean to the long-suffering, impotent nobility of its deluded protagonist? According to Rachel Schmidt, the answers to both questions are to be found in the way in which the novel's characters and episodes were depicted in early illustrated editions. In Critical Images Schmidt argues that these visual images presented critical interpretations that both formed and represented the novel's historical reception. Schmidt analyses both Spanish and English illustrations, including those by William Hogarth, John Vanderbank, Francis Hayman, José del Castillo, and Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, and explores several of the iconographic traditions present in the illustrations: the burlesque, which focuses on the work's slapstick humour; the satirical, which emphasizes Cervantes's supposed didactic, Enlightenment message; and the sentimental, which highlights Don Quixote's purity of heart and purpose. Schmidt demonstrates that the illustrations offset the neoclassical criticism contained in the same volumes and reveals an intriguing variety of historical readings, highlighting the debates, controversies, and conflicts of interests surrounding interpretations of Don Quixote. Dealing with such topical issues as canon formation, visual semiotics, and the impact of visual media on public opinion, Critical Images will be of great value not only to literary scholars and literary historians but also to art historians and those engaged in cultural and media studies.

Madame Bovary, written by Gustave Flaubert, was published in 1857 in French. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Salammbô (1862) is a historical novel by Gustave Flaubert. It is set in Carthage during the 3rd century BC, immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt which took place shortly after the First Punic War. Sentimental Education (1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert, and is considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century. The novel describes the life of a young man living through the revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire, and his love for an older woman. The novel's tone is by turns ironic and pessimistic; it occasionally lampoons French society. The main character, Frédéric, often gives himself to romantic flights of fancy. Gustave Flaubert ( 1821 – 1880) was an influential French writer who is counted among the greatest novelists in Western literature. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), for his Correspondence, and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.

"An adaptation, in graphic novel format, of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes"--Provided by publisher.

Easy-to-read retelling of the hilarious misadventures of Don Quixote, the idealistic knight, and his squire, Sancho Panza, who set out to right the wrongs of the world. Abridged version with six charming illustrations.